Messages - soundsgood

It is pretty much required if you want a federal clerkship. Because federal clerkships are very competitive positions, only students that have a possibility of securing such a position will feel the need to take a "hard" class. At most schools, federal clerkship positions are limited to those students with top grades and on law review.

Eh, maybe the language wasn't the nicest way to put it, but it is fairly common vernacular on the message boards. If I were you, I'd try not to get bogged down by the language, and instead try to focus on the points being made.

From a quick glance, it looks like you've completely "dug in." I think some of your points are pretty good, others are pretty indefensible. If you'd cede some of the weaker points, I think you'd find more people in agreement with your stronger arguments.

But either way, I've been entertained by the arguing, so it is a win-win from my point-of-view, haha.

I don't even see the "All TTT's are shitholes" argument in this thread. Only that higher-ranked schools will serve most students better than lower-ranked schools in many (but not all) situations. Illini Boy even stated that he doesn't know if elitism SHOULD exist, only that it DOES exist--and that law students should not blindly ignore it.

Vansondon, it seems you're arguing against some pretty mild (and reasonable) statements. Maybe save some of your points for the posters that really rip on lower-ranked schools. Law school is all about the gray area, and this discussion definitely has a ton of gray. Painting the issue as black and white isn't gonna work.

I agree with Ninja. This isn't like a traffic ticket, I'd rethink the whole pro se representation thing.

And I don't know the ins and outs of the pro bono process, but from what I can tell, large firms get most of their pro bono work from patnerships with legal aid type organizations. For instance, my firm agreed to take on X number of domestic abuse and landlord/tenant cases. After someone sought help from Legal Aid, they would be referred to the firm for representation. I think it might be hard to get pro bono representation for a matter that most firms would consider completely "billable."

Are you sure about that? I was fairly certain that FLSA sets minimum standards, and most states have their own statutes that provide varying standards. I actually read something about it earlier this week.

This article mentions something about Federal law being the "floor, not the ceiling." This was my understanding, but I'm not employment law guru.

Most states exempt "white-collar" professional jobs from overtime requirements. Different states have different ways of doing it, but "lawyer" (or its law student equivalent) is going to be excluded in just about all of them.

If you want to end up in the South, I'd go to a school in the South. Everyone always says "go to school where you want to work," but I think that is even more crucial when dealing with the South, which can be a somewhat closed community.

With that in mind, I don't think Maryland, and especially UConn, are going to be great choices. Those are both fine schools, but why would you not target a Wake Forest, UNC, UGA, Alabama, South Carolina,etc.?

Being quite familiar with Baltimore, I don't see why people are saying that Maryland is in such a horrible part of town. Granted, being in a relatively fine part of Baltimore doesn't say much, but it isn't as if you will be attending school in an episode of the Wire.

The problem with Baltimore is that it can go from nice to scary really quickly, and if you don't know where you are, things can get pretty dicey in a hurry.

That being said, the area between the law school and the inner harbor is pretty safe, and I wouldn't see a reason to head off in other directions. If you live in Federal Hill or Canton, and stick to the inner harbor area and law school when downtown, you are staying in the nicer parts of the city.

But for the original question, I feel like Catholic my be a bigger gamble. Maryland and Catholic may have similar options in DC, but Maryland certainly does better in the state of Maryland. DC can be a hard market to crack, and I think it would be smart to attend a school that can provide some sort of backup plan.

In all fairness, no one at W&L loses their scholarship. While the school has the option to putll it if you can't keep a 3.0, I don't think it is enforced as long as it appears you are putting in a reasonable effort. And it really isn't hard to avoid the bottom 10 percent or so that fall beneath the 3.0 line.

In fact, mine was actually increased after first year to keep up with rising tuition.

I'd recommend visiting W&L. If you could picture yourself in a small town for 3 years, I would take W&L over Fordham (keeping in mind your goal of DC over New York). Fordham is a great school, but my impression is that it loses a bit of its prestige outside of NY.

I guess you could try to get some money from GW, but I don't know how likely that would be. GW is a great school, especially for DC. That being said, I don't think its placement is substantially greater than W&L's in DC (though it definitely allows for greater networking opportunities). I think an extra 60k plus living expenses is a stiff price to pay for marginally better prospects.

If you want to be in DC, I don't think Temple is the way to go. However, it is a fine school, and a full ride is nothing to sneeze at--especially if you aren't interested in biglaw (hopefully it will still exist when you graduate). Factoring in your scholarship at W&L,and increased living expenses of living in Philly, I'd imagine you are only saving about 10k a year by choosing Temple over W&L.

To summarize, I'd probably go to W&L, if you think you can handle living in a small town. All pretty good choices to have though, can't really go terribly wrong. I guess I should note that I go to W&L, so I may be biased.